The present invention refers to a process and a device for the treatment of fibrous material.
Natural and artificial fibers are used in a lot of industrial applications. In order to be able to use the natural and artificial fibers, a preparatory treatment is often required. Natural fibers, on the one hand, can be provided in a soiled form as a combed sliver, for example, so that it is necessary to clean and treat them prior to processing. Fibrous material consisting of artificial fibers, on the other hand, is in most cases provided without impurities, but, for a lot of processing methods, surface modifications of the fibrous material are required. If, for example, the artificial fiber material is to be embedded in a plastic mass, a depassivation of the surface of the fibrous material is required for a good adhesion between the fibrous material and the plastic mass enclosing the fibrous material.
In practice, methods for processing fibrous material have been known in which various cleaning and etching methods with baths and steam atmospheres have been used to clean and treat the fibrous material. In order to process the fibrous material treated in such baths or atmospheres, the cleaned and/or etched fibrous material is dried. However, the cleaning and etching baths produce a lot of waste to be disposed. There also is the danger of chemicals being released into the environment from the fibrous material because of the fibrous material being insufficiently dried.